Louisiana’s Charles Boustany eyes a run for key trade spot

Rep. Charles Boustany is polishing his credentials to make a run at a key trade spot in Congress, with a little help from a pending shake-up on the Ways and Means Committee and a backlash against Russian energy.

The Republican’s coastal Louisiana district, home to some of the state’s largest shipping ports, is poised to reap huge benefits from the U.S. shale gas boom, especially as pressure intensifies on the White House and Congress to end Russia’s domination of the European energy market.

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That means the push in Washington to ease restrictions on liquefied natural gas exports could pay big dividends for Boustany as he considers a run for chairman of the House Ways and Means Trade Subcommittee.

Russia was the world’s second-largest producer of dry natural gas and third-largest oil producer in 2012, behind Saudi Arabia and the United States, and delivered 30 percent of Europe’s natural gas last year and about a third of its oil in recent years, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration and the European Commission.

This fact has given rise to fears that the former Soviet Union could retaliate against U.S. and EU sanctions by restricting its energy supply to Europe.

The drive for greater energy security there translates into a growth opportunity here, where applications for liquefied natural gas export terminals have spiked. Three of seven such export terminal projects, to be overseen by the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, are located within Boustany’s district, and one of those, Sabine Pass LNG, should become operational in 2015.

Federal law generally requires the approval of natural gas exports to countries in free-trade agreements with the United States, but shipments to nations that haven’t inked such deals must be approved by the Energy Department, which can block the exports if it deems that they are not in the public interest.

The European Union, Japan, China and India, as well as Ukraine, are among the nations that have no such agreements, although the White House is pursuing deals involving the first two.

The U.S., meanwhile, is now the world’s No. 1 producer of natural gas, surpassing Russia in the past few years — a fact that some say builds a compelling case for increasing U.S. exports of liquefied natural gas, especially given the international frictions over Russia’s annexation of Crimea and destabilization of Ukraine. The Asian and Latin American markets for U.S. natural gas are also expected to grow in the coming years.

Boustany points to those reasons, as well as an “intense personal interest” in trade issues, as his reason for wanting to be the GOP’s go-to guy on trade, and a changing of the guard at Ways and Means could bolster his chances of reaching that goal.

Committee Chairman Dave Camp (R-Mich.) plans to retire this year, opening up the top spot to Rep. Paul Ryan (R-Wis.), considered a favorite to take the helm. Meanwhile, current Trade Subcommittee Chairman Devin Nunes (R-Calif.) could vacate that spot to become the Intelligence Committee chairman. Nunes announced his desire to take that post, which is appointed by the House speaker, in late March after current Intelligence Chairman Mike Rogers (R-Mich.) said he wouldn’t seek another term in Congress. Boustany himself would have to drop his chairmanship of the Ways and Means Oversight Subcommittee to move over to the Trade panel, leaving yet another opening for someone else.

Republican Conference rules prevent a House member from chairing more than one committee or subcommittee.

Asked whether he would relinquish his subcommittee chairmanship if he got the top spot on the Intelligence Committee, Nunes said it’s “way too early to be talking about that.”

“It’s the speaker’s decision and you gotta go from there before you make any decisions,” he said. “I’m not going to be speculating out into a very far distant future,” Nunes said, adding that he would retain his Ways and Means seat even if he were to give up the subcommittee chairmanship.

The potential reshuffling could leave room for an ambitious member to make a mark on trade. Ryan, for one, would very likely be immersed in efforts to rewrite the Tax Code, and the change at the top will take place just as the trade agenda gets back on track after the congressional midterm elections. That agenda has become stalled because of Democratic reluctance to take up politically hazardous trade issues in the run-up to the elections, especially given the likelihood that Republicans will gain seats in the House and Senate.

Although he has yet to throw his hat in the ring formally, Boustany said trade is shaping up as his “top policy issue,” and he is laying the groundwork for a possible move.

The former heart surgeon shows a fluency in trade acronyms, an alphabet soup that includes the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP), the Trade in Services Agreement (TISA), trade promotion authority (TPA), the Information Technology Agreement (ITA) and so forth, and he plans to flaunt his knowledge at more public events in the coming months.